EDUCATING FOR FILIPINO NATIONALISM - Leticia R.

Constantino

(Speech delivered at the Education Forum Symposium, on September 27, 1985

at St. Joseph’s College)

Educating for nationalism means educating for a national and social purpose.
It means going beyond (but not neglecting) the conventional tasks of training a
person to earn a living and developing his intellect, skills and character.

Educating for nationalism means consciously educating Filipinos to BE

Filipinos – Filipinos who will work for the Philippines and the Filipino people. To
be pro-Philippines and pro-Filipino one must have national pride and a sense of
national identity. Our present educational system promotes pride in our beautiful
land, our tinikling and sampaguita, our Mayon and Banawe, our smiling people. It
promotes national identity or nationhood, but nationalism is more than
nationhood.

Nationalism today has two components –the anti-imperialism component

and the democratic component. The nationalist believes that his country’s
resources must be preserved for the Filipino people. He demands his
people’s right to political sovereignty and economic independence and is aware
that we are losing both to external forces –the major capitalist states, their
transnational corporations and international banks, and the multilateral
institutions dominated by the foreign powers. Educating for nationalism means
fostering an understanding of this situation in all its complexity and
inculcating in our youth a patriotic commitment to change it.

As to the democratic component –since nationalists are first not only pro-
Philippines but pro-Filipino people, they believe that any gains accruing from the
exercise of political sovereignty and economic independence must favor the
majority of our people economically and in terms of their greater
participation in government planning and decision-making. Educating for
nationalism therefore also means developing in our youth a commitment to
people’s right and a determination to help our people exercise those rights.

Education is not a politically neutral enterprise. The recent furor over the
National Service law made this abundantly clear. Those who control, plan and
shape the educational system as a whole, do so for their own purposes. Under
Spain and under the United States, Filipinos were being educated primarily to
serve the purposes of each colonizer, to be good and loyal colonials. Under
Spain, then a theocratic state, education was primarily religious instruction. Spain
used religion as a means of control. The Americans used education as THEIR
means of control and also as the principal vehicle for the Americanization of our
consumption tastes. With English as the medium of instruction, Filipinos
learned to look up to American society, thus nurturing a colonial mentality
among Filipinos that is still visible even now.
Today our youth are being educated for neocolonialism, to accept our
country’s assigned role within the global capitalist system as a source of cheap
raw materials and cheap labor, and as a profitable market for foreign goods
within an economy dominated by foreign investments. This is the real
significance of the provision in the Education Act of 1982 which specifies that
education in public and private schools must support the national development
program.

Under this program, development is supposed to be realized through foreign

investments and production for export. Who really needs this kind of program?
To answer this question I must give you a quick historical flashback.

During WW2 the US supplied all the needs of the Allied armies. This greatly
stimulated the expansion of production. The war made US corporations bigger
and richer. When peace came, it caused grave problems to these corporations.
The American market could not absorb all their production. More than ever,
American corporations needed countries to sell their goods to and countries to
invest their extra capital in. But the supply of countries was shrinking. Eastern
Europe and later China were lost to communism. Many former colonies became
independent. It was feared that they might be hostile to their former colonizers
and adopt economic protectionism. US corporations (later joined by those of
Europe and Japan) wanted to make sure that the economies of the Third World
countries remained open to them for trade and investment. What to do?

Solution: The World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would
grant loans to poor countries as a way of encouraging them to adopt economic
development programs based on production for export, trade liberalization and
hospitality to foreign investments –in short, an economy open to TNC capital and
TNC products to go in and out.

If Third World governments become more nationalistic and their economies

would be less open to foreign products, the US herself would experience a
grave crisis because today, one out of every five jobs in the manufacturing
sector in the US depends on exports and 33% of all farm produce is shipped
overseas.

We swallowed the first bait of WB loans and IMF “stabilization” funds under
President Macapagal. In exchange for this financial assistance, Macapagal
devalued the peso from P2 to US$1 to nearly 4 to 1, and he dismantled import
and exchange controls. The pattern was clear even then but few Filipinos
realized its implications because as a people we are more interested in politics
than in economics.
Under President Marcos, this economic development program was fully
implemented and under him too, education was fully aligned with this type of
economic development.

This economic development program is anti-nationalist because it serves

primarily the needs and interests of foreign corporations and not those of
the Filipino people. Of course we are constantly told by the government that
this is OUR development program and that it will bring progress to our people.
Actually, it is almost exactly the same program that the WB-IMF combine
imposes on all Third World countries who want to borrow money or are already
indebted to them.

But perhaps what is good for foreign investors is also good for us? That is what
the foreign investors would like us to believe, but data from the government itself
belies such claim.

Under this program:

• Real per capita income declined by 30% from 1972 to 1982. Filipinos are
eating less and less.
• Present per capita consumption of vegetables is only 12.4 kilos per year
whereas the recommended level is 32, 4 kilos.
• Per capita fish consumption was 39 kilos per year in 1970 and only 20
kilos in 1980. As of 1984, 53% of Filipino families were eating tuyo or
daing for their daily fare.
• Per capita consumption of beef was already a low 6.1 kilos per year in
1970 but in 1978 it went down drastically to 1.1 kilos. American per capita
consumption of beef was 56 kilos per year as of 1978.

These are all official figures and they are bad enough. When you consider that
computations of per capita income include the income of millionaires and the
computations of per capita consumption include food eaten in Malacanang, in 5-
star hotels and in the mansions of the rich, the reality becomes even worse.

Perhaps you may argue that it is not the development program but the Marcos
administration that is the cause of our problems. Certainly the administration is
a tremendously aggravating factor and the cause of many of our miseries,
but other countries that have adopted the same program are also suffering
from similar hardships: higher debts, chronic dollar shortages, declining living
standards, repression, militarization and violation of human rights.

Now we have the minimum background to understanding what is happening in

the field of education.

In the 1960s, he WB realized that for its economic programs to succeed, it

needed to restructure the educational system. Why? Because dollar loans
require millions of pesos in counterpart funds. By lending us money, the WB in
fact decides how and where we will spend our own money.

I will mention only 3 types of loans. They will clearly show whose interests are
being served.
• Loans for manpower development, for vocational and technical education,
and for technical English: TNCs want us to borrow money to train the
kinds of English-speaking technicians they need. This saves them the
expense of training their own work force.
• Loans for agricultural education and for fisheries training: American TNCs
are heavily engaged in agri-business and in world trade of food products.
Current government policies imposed by the IMF are designed to facilitate
the entry of foreign corporations in agriculture. The WB itself has declared
that we should forget about industrialization and concentrate on producing
raw materials. The loans for agricultural education are producing the
technicians for foreign agri-business corporations. Fisheries education
would be of benefit to Japan which wants us to produce more fish for
Japanese consumers especially now that the industrial pollution of her
waters and the 200-mile offshore limit have reduced her own resources.
• Loans for textbook production: These textbooks are intended to inculcate
concepts and values supportive of the economic development program.
They are intended to inculcate in young minds acceptance of our status as
a satellite economy within the global capitalist system.

Social studies textbooks give voluminous data on our natural resources, our
mines and forests and fishing areas, the many factories and businesses that
have been set up especially under the Marcos administration, but they never
mention how many of these economic fields are dominated by foreign
corporations. In fact, when foreign corporations are mentioned, children are
taught to be grateful to them for helping our country.

In discussing the fishing industry for example, one book says that we have to
import fish because production has not been able to cope with our fast growing
population. It does not say that we import canned mackerel because we export
our best fish. While the book says that the government is striving to make us self-
sufficient in fish does not say anything about the Japanese invasion of our fishing
industry, that in fact, the government itself, through Presidential Decree (PD)
704, now allows foreigners to fish in Philippine waters, thus discarding the pre-
martial law policy of conserving our fishing resources for our people. The result
has been disastrous for Filipino fishermen but the book can not say this because
education must promote the idea that foreign investment will develop our country.
Only a well-informed, nationalist teacher can give her students the true state of
the fishing industry.

Another textbook teaches a child to be proud that his country is known all over
the world for its luscious bananas and sweet pineapples. Only a well-informed,
nationalist teacher can tell her students who control and profit from the banana
and pineapple industries.

The concept of interdependence is well projected in these textbooks. It is

correct to teach the young that all the peoples of the world regardless of race and
creed belong to the family of man. But when textbooks say that the different
states are like a family where the bigger states help the smaller ones with loans
and technology as big brothers help the younger ones in a family, then these
books are developing in young Filipinos a blind trust in the big states that will
prevent them from questioning the actions of these states, the self-serving
conditions and strings they attach to their so-called aid. Can we expect a WB-
funded textbook to describe what political, economic, diplomatic and military
pressures the big states exert on small ones to make the latter do what they
want? Only a well-informed, nationalist teacher would be able to correct the half-
truths peddled by such textbooks. Only a well-informed, nationalist teacher would
know the role the US played in destabilizing and overthrowing nationalist
governments in Guatemala, Indonesia, Bolivia, Chile and now Nicaragua.

What about history? Textbooks emphasize what our colonizers; especially the
Americans have done for us. They have long lists of what we learned from them.
Shouldn’t our young people be told of the fierce and heroic resistance of our
forefathers? Should they not be told of the tortures and massacres perpetrated
by their American conquerors? Should they not know, for example, that General
Franklin bell himself estimated that 1/6 of the population of Luzon dies during the
Philippine-American War? Instead, our textbook asks: what would have
happened to us if the foreigners had not come? The child is being taught to be
grateful that his country was colonized! A mind so shaped will not question
present foreign intervention in our affairs, political and economic. Only a well-
informed, nationalist teacher can tell her students about our past from a Filipino
perspective. Philippine history, properly taught, is a potent tool for
developing nationalism. Perhaps that is why history is being de-
emphasized.

What about democracy? Living as we do under an authoritarian government, we

can expect state-approved textbooks to reflect the system, and they do. Martial
law is described as a heroic act which saved our country from chaos. A Grade 3
book asks: “Di ba ninyo napansin na masaya ang mga mamamayan dahil
pantay-pantay na pamamalakad ng ating pamahalaan? Iyan ang pangarap nig
ating bayaning si Dr. Jose Rizal”. So the New Society is Rizal’s dream come true!

The concept of democracy is distorted by lessons on citizenship which

enumerates duties but omit rights and which equate democratic participation with
cooperation in carrying out government projects. Only a well-informed, nationalist
teacher can give her students concrete data on presidential decrees that curtail
citizens’ rights, and on the many other ways that democracy has been
emasculated in our country while being rhetorically extolled.
It would take me more than 3 hours to discuss all the half-truths and mis-
information, the anti-nationalist and anti-democratic concepts propagated by
these books. Let me just give you my own favorite example of colonial mentality.
Discussing the merits of our local fruits and sweets, one book says: “masarap
ang ating matamis na santol, lasang prunes.” Must our yardstick for what is good
always be a foreign yardstick?

Now what is to be done? Since educational policy and the direction and content
of education are tied- up with the economic development program, the
educational system will not change fundamentally until we Filipinos secure
fundamental changes in economic and political policies –in short, until a
truly nationalist government comes to power.

But this does not mean that we can do nothing meanwhile. Filipinos can take an
active part in opposing certain policies, as so many have done regarding the
national Service Law. While officially following prescribed curricula, school
administrations, parents and teachers can cooperate in finding ways of making
the actual educational process serve the cause of nationalist transformation. For
example, a required college subject like land reform was intended to acquaint
students with the supposed achievements of the government. I know of college
instructors who teach the course as a critique of the land reform program and
other related practices.

Whenever I describe the contents of primary and secondary textbooks, the

solution of teachers is either to change the books or not to use textbooks at all.
Administrators, parents and teachers could evaluate the various textbooks
available but generally, they would find the content and perspective differ very
little because writers must follow MECS guidelines so that their product may
receive Textbook Board approval. If we opt for no textbook, there is the problem
of finding adequate material at the proper level for each class. Parents can help
teachers obtain useful material with a nationalist perspective but frequently such
material is too complex and difficult for the lower grades. It would take a creative,
diligent super-teacher to rewrite the stuff.

Why don’t nationalists write nationalist textbooks? Without the prospect of

MECS approval publishers would not print such books –unless enough school
administrations guarantee that such books will be used as supplementary
reading. This is something for nationalist-oriented schools to think about.

Clearly, our best hope for a nationalist education at the present time lies with the
teacher. But the quality of education the teacher transmits depends on the quality
of her own education. The education of the educator is therefore of primary
importance. I think we can safely assume that most teachers did not receive a
thorough nationalist education. Therefore, what is needed is a re-education of
the educator. This re-education is not synonymous with teacher training.
Although HOW you teach is important, WHAT you teach is fundamental.

Aside from a thorough grasp of her subject area, the teacher must have
adequate knowledge of many other subjects. Knowledge cannot be
compartmentalized because reality is not compartmentalized. As a Filipino
teaching Filipinos she must be well-acquainted with Philippine history from a
nationalist point of view and she must be likewise conversant with present
political and economic developments so that she can situate her teaching within
the Philippine context and educate for nationalism.

All of this preparation requires effort, time and resources, which very often
teachers do not have considering their modest salaries, the length of time spent
in teaching and in other activities. School administrators and parents can be a big
help. Schools should systematically build a library of nationalist books. School
administrators can encourage the formation of faculty study groups to discuss
various issues and subjects to widen intellectual horizons. They can set up
throughout the year a series of short courses on different subjects such as the
present international economic order, Philippine history after the Pacific War, the
role of the global communications system in the shaping of Philippine culture, the
policies on food, science and nationalism, etc. Administrators should give due
recognition and material reward to teachers active in such intellectual efforts and
to teachers who produce useful instructional materials. At year-end, when
schools recognize the academic achievements of students, they should give due
recognition to the achievements of teachers as well. In short, school
administrations should pay particular attention to the creation of an active,
nationalist, intellectual climate in faculty ranks.

Parents can help in various ways. They can contact nationalist Filipinos who can
handle short courses to upgrade the interdisciplinary background of the faculty.
They can use their financial resources for gift books and gift subscriptions for the
bookshelves of the faculty room. After all, such gifts are in effect gifts to their
own children who will surely benefit from a more knowledgeable teacher. Many
Filipino scholars are writing books and producing research papers which should
reach the faculty of every school. I may mention IBON, the research papers of
UP’s Third World Studies Center, certain books and papers published by Ateneo,
La Salle, etc. and of course the 20 articles that the teachers Assistance Program
of education Forum procedures for teachers every year.

Whatever project administrators and parents may decide on, we must all
remember that re-education is a slow and even painful process. It will mean
consideration of new ideas, new values, and new yardsticks for judging people,
institutions and events. Therefore, no project can succeed unless it is designed
and sustained as a permanently ongoing process and one in which the teacher
participates actively in changing herself.
Teacher militancy in defense of teachers’ rights and prerogatives is one of the
most admirable aspects of today’s protest movement. Teachers must get what
they deserve. At the same time, teachers must provide our youth with the
education they deserve –a nationalist education.

So I address myself directly to the teachers: If you believe that we Filipinos

have a right to control our own political and economic life for our own
benefit, then you must build in the classroom, a generation of thinking
Filipinos committed to that task. To do this efficiently and correctly you
yourself must strive constantly to broaden your intellectual horizon and to re-
evaluate the concepts, values, information and orientation you imbibed when you
were a student. You must constantly study developments in Philippine society
and also all the external forces and institutions that today exert so much
influence on our present and future. Above all, you must pay special attention
to the study and analysis of economic policies because our growing
poverty, the climate of repression and militarization and the violation of
human rights are ultimately traceable to economic policies instituted to
benefit foreign interests and our own ruling elite.

Let me end, finally with this thought: These are crucial times for our country.
More than ever we need teachers who, despite political constraints, will try
their best to infuse in a new generation that firm nationalist commitment
that will reverse the process of denationalization and de-Filipinization of
our economy, culture and society. I pray that more and more teachers will
perform this task with intelligence, creativity, patriotism and courage.